Maverick
by Mikells
Summary: In a period of general unease between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, Jedi Knight Cyandrah finds herself at odds with everyone when her enemies force her to take actions not approved by the Jedi Order. Unwilling to sit by when those she loves are put in danger, Cyandrah sets off to destroy the Sith responsible before they can put their deadly plan into action.
1. Introduction

**Maverick**

It is a period of healing for the galaxy. The war with the  
Sith Empire is over, but not forgotten. Heroes from both  
sides find themselves at a loss, and peace between the  
Galactic Republic and the Empire is tenuous at best.

Following the destruction of the Temple on Coruscant, the  
Jedi retreat to the ancestral world of Tython to begin anew,  
separate but still a part of the Republic that they serve so  
faithfully. And while they accept the peace that exists, they  
know that it is only a matter of time before hostilities arise  
once more.

But not all of the Order is so forgiving. There are some that will  
not be fooled by the Sith again, and understand that the Empire  
only wants peace for as long as it takes to rebuild so they can  
reignite the conflict on a grander scale. Though ignored for  
the most part by the Jedi Order as a whole, these Mavericks  
continue to spread their beliefs to any that will listen, building  
a secret Light Side Army that will be prepared for the return of  
the Sith...


	2. Prologue

**Prologue**

_**Alderaan**_

_**14 BTC**_

Weapons fire flew back and forth across the scorched battlefield. Soldiers of the Galactic Republic traded fire without pause to concern themselves with the fate of the troops that fought for the Sith Empire. And amongst those troops, running back and forth from engagements with lightsabers in hand wearing dented armour and frayed robes were the soldiers of light and dark themselves; the Jedi and the Sith.

The Sith numbers far outnumbered those of their adversaries—there were four for every Jedi in the battle. But the Sith greatly underestimated the skill of the Republic's regular infantry, and those that allowed themselves to become complacent took a blaster bolt to the back of the head or a shock grenade to the chest for their trouble.

Jedi Padawan Cyandrah could barely keep the horror from her mind as she slashed back and forth with her twin, golden-bladed lightsabers. This was her first engagement in the war against the Empire, and she was horrified by the sights of the field of battle.

Powerful Sith who cared naught for the lives of their lesser carved through soldiers from both sides—whoever got in their way was evidently fair game. Padawans and Knights alike were butchered for sport by the ferocious Sith. Cyandrah's Master, Calex Tuole, had already been cut down by the bald one now fighting against Master Satele Shan.

If she was honest with herself, Cyandrah wanted revenge for that. But she buried those feelings, those thoughts, under the adrenaline-fed alertness of the battle, her awareness of the locations of every individual around her so she could better choose her next motions.

A small, mental touch from the Force warned her of imminent danger, and she ducked and swung out with her leg, catching the armoured legs of a Sith Lord and sending him crashing backwards to the ground. His lightsaber rolled away from him as he fell, and Cyandrah wasted no time in drilling both of her weapons into his chest before he could regain his feet.

On instinct, the lightsaber in her left hand swung backwards and caught the incoming blow of another Sith, who had decided to take advantage of what he thought was a clear distraction. But her Master had taught her too well to be caught off-guard by such things, and she shoved the offending blade away from her body before swinging around and kicking out at his chest. Her foot dented the armour and sent him sprawling, but he was back on his feet before she reached him.

Lightsabers clashed and sparked. Her own weapons seemed a blur as she spun and kicked and launched herself into new sequences she hoped would get the better of this Sith. But he seemed to move as fast, manoeuvring his one crimson blade into place to block both of hers every time she brought one of them around to cleave him in two.

Thinking to catch him off-balance with an unorthodox move, she dropped to the ground and rolled side-over-side. He wasn't quick enough and she tripped him up trying to jump over her rolling form. Quickly, she was back on her feet to deliver a finishing blow, only to see a fellow Padawan deal it on his way past the scene.

She said nothing to the rushing Padawan, but was grateful for his initiative, and considered thanking him later.

"Master Jedi!" Cyandrah turned to see a Republic soldier heading towards her. Her helmet had come off and her chest plate bore the shallow gash consistent with a lightsaber strike.

Before the trooper could report anything to her, Cyandrah heard an explosion and turned to see the menacing bald adversary of Master Satele Shan getting to his feet, flash burns across half of his face and an unmasked Republic soldier only meters away from him.

She hurried over, only to watch as Master Shan flung out her hand and threw an invisible wave of the Force at the Sith, launching him into a rock face. Another Sith jumped in the young Jedi's way and was taken down by a combination of a lightsaber across the chest and a blaster shot to the head.

When she looked back up, she saw Master Shan lash out a larger Force wave with both hands. She felt the power behind the strike, watched the ruined, scarred face of her Sith adversary as he, too, felt it coming. He was slammed against the rock face so hard this time that it shattered all around him, launching rock and shale in every direction. Even as far from the scene as she was, Cyandrah was forced to shield her face and eyes from the blast.

When it was over, the Sith was nowhere in sight, and Master Shan was standing there, watching the scene with a frown.

"Master Jedi," the trooper behind the young Jedi started again.

"What is it, Captain?" she asked politely, slashing at a couple of blaster shots aimed at her and sending them back to the droids that had offended.

"Word just came in: the remnants of the Imperial fleet just entered hyperspace." Cyandrah turned, deflected more blaster fire, and waited. "We've won, Master Jedi."

"We haven't won until every Sith and every Imperial soldier is off this planet, Captain." And with that, Cyandrah flung herself back into the battle, pushing the Sith commander and Satele Shan from her mind for the time being.


	3. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_**Coruscant**_

_**25 Years Later**_

Cyandrah woke with a start. Her heart was pounding and she could hear the blood rushing by her ears as the last vestiges of the nightmare quickly faded from her mind to become nothing more than an old memory. She'd dreamed that she was back on Alderaan, watching her master being butchered by a Sith with a half-burned face while she stood helpless to do anything. The nightmare had haunted her dreams from time to time over recent years, but it wasn't until recently that she was suffering those horrors every single night. It was a wonder her children in the next room didn't wake from the screams.

She sat upright in bed for a while, hugging her knees tight to her chest in an instinctive defensive posture. Her thoughts wandered back and forth, chaotic, between the battle of Alderaan and the other horrors she had seen since. She'd fought four major battles during the war against the Sith Empire. The worst had been eleven years ago — a Sith Lord by the name of Malgus had personally led a strike force into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant while the Imperial fleet descended on the world and lay waste to it. She had barely escaped with her life — saved from death when a Jedi Master threw himself on the crimson blade meant for her. She honoured his memory every night in prayer, and she had exacted justice from the Sith that had cut him down. But the temple lay in ruins now. The Order had moved back to the ancestral world of Tython, partially segregating itself from the Republic. The treaty had been signed and the Sith had retreated.

Nonsense, she hissed to herself wordlessly. The Sith do not just disappear! They're up to something.

Resigned to the fact that she would not get back to sleep, Cyandrah threw the covers off and padded across the cold floor to the dresser. She picked as casual civilian wear as she could find and slipped into it gracefully. Then she checked the time on the glowing chrono facing slightly away from her bed. Frowning, she snatched her lightsabers up from the top of the dresser and clipped them to their places on her belt before leaving the bedroom.

She was not, thankfully, surprised to see that the children were still abed. Naturally, she thought, they wouldn't have the same terrors keeping them awake that she did. The youngest two were still at the stage where they were asking their mother every night to check for monsters before they went to bed, but they would soon grow out of that. She fixed herself a drink of cold water from the kitchen and then went out onto the open balcony to enjoy the early morning air — as much as she could.

Traffic was low that morning. Three lanes and an entire level were void of the typical numbers of speeders and shuttles that hurried back and forth across the ever-busy city-planet. Most sensible people were in bed. Many others who were coming or going from the world were probably being held in customs for clearance and final checks. And, of course, without the major Jedi presence on the world, traffic was still a little better at peak times than it had been nearly two decades ago.

She could see the monumental Jedi Temple on the horizon. Even after more than twenty years, tendrils of smoke were known to curl up from the ruins; fires that had never truly gone out. Looters and scavengers had stripped away all forms of usable technology from inside the ruins. The Jedi had claimed the archives before the looters had started to gnaw away at the temple, however, and moved them to Tython. Opportunistic, greedy foremen had stripped away great slabs of stone and permacrete for construction projects in other parts of the city. And all the while, the Senate turned a blind eye — eager to forget the Jedi who, some saw, were the reason the Empire had gone to war in the first place.

Movement behind caught her attention, and she realised with a start that the sun had started to come up. She had been standing on the balcony for hours, reminiscing on the better times in her life — when Coruscant and the Republic had been whole; when she'd been learning from Calex Tuole the intricacies and importance of the Force; when she'd had plenty of friends at the Jedi Temple with whom she could practice her skills without the natural fear of a student receiving criticism. All of those friends were dead now, even the one she had made on Alderaan after saving her life. She died years later with her master on Dantooine.

Cyandrah started to turn to see which of her children had gotten up first, but stopped and smiled when a pair of muscled arms wrapped around her waist. She leaned back against the other person, taking comfort from him and reaching for his mind. He wasn't Jedi, like she was, but he still had a strong connection to the Force nonetheless.

Recently, the Jedi had adopted the stance of taking only children into the Order for training. The rationale behind it was that it was supposedly to safeguard against applicants turning to the dark side and joining the Sith — that if they started training young, they had more time to adopt the Jedi philosophy and reject the Sith. Her husband, Rex Taloran, was unacceptable for training because of his age. But that didn't make him any less acceptable to her, and that, among other reasons, was why they lived on Coruscant instead of Tython.

"When did you get in?" she asked in a whisper.

"About an hour ago," he replied, warming her as much with his voice as by his touch. "I have friends at customs. They were able to see me through quickly enough when I gave them the sob story of how I missed the kids."

Cyandrah giggled. Rex was a smuggler — of sorts. The Republic and the Jedi Order both gave him a lot of leeway because he often smuggled arms and supplies to desperate rebels living under Imperial rule. They didn't want to be caught by the Empire helping the rebels, so they'd surreptitiously arranged for a dozen known repeat smugglers serving life sentences to "escape" from prison under the condition that they helped the rebels survive harsh rule. Rex was technically wanted on Coruscant — a cover story courtesy of the Jedi Order — and so went under a different assumed identity every time he returned home.

It was just as well. Cyandrah knew she would fall under hardship if he was caught. If the Empire caught him, they were likely to find out about the children. If the Republic was forced to catch him to save face so the Empire wouldn't accuse them of circumventing the peace treaty, then she'd have to deal with raising the children alone with no assistance from any of their friends, who would likely suddenly lose all interest in them. Even the Jedi Order wasn't above cutting her loose in order to avoid being connected to illegal smuggling.

"I'm glad." She said nothing else for a while, just luxuriated in his arms as they watched the sun rise over the tops of the highest towers in the city. It gleamed off the distant dome of the rebuilt Senate Rotunda, and was blanketed in places by the coiling smoke from the ruinous Jedi Temple. She sighed.

"The same nightmare again?" he asked her.

"Again." She nodded. "Every night for the past three months. It's that Darth Malgus. Ever since Grand Master Shan put out the word that Malgus has been personally overseeing a lot of the Imperial fleet's doings in their outer territories, I've just had this sick feeling that something bad is going to happen. I'm worried about the children."

"Of course you are." There was something strange in his voice. She couldn't peg it. Worry? Panic? Surely not. There wasn't much that could scare him so badly. But a threat against the children might just do it, Cyandrah reasoned. "He won't touch them. You and I won't let him."

"I know." She sighed again. "But Tasha's old enough. She's been hearing the stories on the HoloNet … at school. She knows the Empire is planning something. Did you know that parents are starting to pull their children out of classes?"

"How would I? I've been on Balmorra."

"Yes." She turned to look at him. "It's like they're expecting the Imperial fleet to drop out of hyperspace in orbit and rain fire down on their heads again. It's insane!"

"Of course it is. After the last time, you don't think that Oteg and Var Suthra are going to let that happen again, now, do you?" He smiled then at some private joke. "I'd like to see them try. My friends in the fleet say that Var Suthra would really love to go head to head with The Butcher himself. I think that would be an interesting show, personally. I could score us front-row seats, if you like. Bring the kids along." Then, seeing the scornful look on Cyandrah's face, he added, "Or not."

"'Bring the kids along'? Indeed!" she slapped him playfully and then broke free of his grip. "You have too many friends, I sometimes think." She kissed him on the cheek and went back inside then.

"Good morning, mum," the girl waiting inside said when she saw her.

"Morning Tasha. Your father's home," she kissed her eldest child on the forehead as she passed and made her way to the kitchen to prepare something for breakfast. The youngest two were typically not far behind their older sibling in waking of a morning. Cyandrah had learned that having breakfast ready for them when they did was in her best interests if she wanted to avoid a headache.

"Dad!" Tasha squealed. She raced out to greet her father and within seconds they were giggling together out on the balcony while Cyandrah slaved away.

* * *

Cyandrah had just finished cleaning up after breakfast when she heard her holocomm going off from the bedroom. The children were with their father, playing and laughing and catching up; all of them sated from a delicious and bountiful breakfast that was rare to the occasions when her husband came home from wherever it was that he went gallivanting off to.

With a final look to the four most precious things to her, she dried her hands and went to the bedroom to grab the holocomm.

With a quick flick, a faint blue glow appeared above the thick disc and soon coalesced into a familiar shape.

"Good morning Nishta," she said upon recognising the Chiss. Nishta—full name Issre'nish'talur—was historically the only one of her species ever to join the Jedi Order, or even serve the Republic.

Typically, the Chiss Ascendency kept to itself. But for reasons known only to the Dark Council of the Sith, they'd chosen to align themselves with the Empire during the war, and in the years since.

Nishta pressed her fingers together in a downward point and bowed. "_Cyandrah,_" she said.

"What can I do for you this morning?"

"_The Grand Master is asking for you,_" the Chiss said without hesitating. "_She arrived here several hours ago and has been discussing policies with several senators in the tower. But she did request your presence at your earliest convenience._"

Cyandrah noted the typical formality of her friend's tone. Even the close friendship they shared was not reason enough to allow the Chiss to address her by any means other than formality. It was as if she had something to prove to the Jedi, to the Republic, and found that her only way of doing that was to remain as professional and objective about anything and everything she could.

"_My_ earliest convenience?"

"_Correct._"

Cyandrah thought about this, looking over her shoulder for a moment. "Let the Grand Master know that I'll be there in about two hours."

"_As you will._" And then the image was gone. Cyandrah set the holocomm back down on top of the lamp desk and set about changing into something more appropriate.


End file.
